Spartacus showrunner Steven S DeKnight has revealed that the series' second season was influenced by Game of Thrones.

DeKnight told IGN that an incest sub-plot was removed from Spartacus: Vengeance to avoid comparisons with HBO's fantasy drama.

"All of us writers on Spartacus love Game of Thrones," he said. "It's just so well done.

"It's interesting because we did have an incest plot planned for Vengeance, with the twin characters of Seppius (Tom Hobbs) and Seppia (Hanna Mangan), but when I heard that Game of Thrones had it as an integral part of the story... we didn't go there."

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DeKnight continued: "We didn't want to repeat something that somebody else was doing. And Game of Thrones did it so brilliantly [with the relationship between Cersei and Jaime].

"We have to find our unusual extremeness in other ways. Which, believe me, by the end of the season we do."

"Whatever you think you know about Spartacus or the characters of Spartacus, forget it," he warned. "The people that you love, you're going to hate. The people that you hate, you're going to love. And just when you think you've got it figured out, it changes again."

Spartacus: Vengeance begins on Friday on Starz in the US and will air on Mondays on Sky1 in the UK.